Sick Inside
by Know-It-All-2009
Summary: Auggie contemplates on his life after his indiscretion against Annie with Helen. one shot


**Sick Inside**

* * *

**Fandom: **Covert Affairs **  
Characters: **Auggie Anderson Helen Anderson Annie Walker**  
Pairings: **Auggie Anderson X Annie Walker; Auggie Anderson X Helen Anderson/Hanson**  
Summary: ** After that evening, Auggie felt horrible about what he had done with Helen and to Annie; a look at his emotions and the happenings after that eventful evening  
**Inspiration: **Sick Inside by Hope Partlow

* * *

Covert Affairs (c) USA Network Just playing in their playground.

Just a short little piece that I wanted to write. Not intending to do a sequel or expand upon it but I do have a few ideas if there is any interest in it being expanded as I'm stuck on **_Safe and Sound_ **and can't seem to get past my writer's block on it.

* * *

Those months in Rome had been some of the best times of his life. He was doing field work, still had his sight, and got to spend those months with someone he thought would be the love of his life. His forever. He soon quickly found out how wrong he was in that respect.

Helen had been seen either making or picking up a drop, he truly didn't remember at this point as he was several beers in already. Instead of telling Auggie, she told their handler who gave her an out while still keeping Auggie's cover intact. It was hard for him to force through it and continue on with the mission but he did, but he wasn't half the man that he was before her.

* * *

The first time Auggie Anderson met Annie Walker, she had gone to ask him what he was listening to through his headphone when he suddenly blurted out he was blind, trying to explain away the laser cane that he held within his hands.

They clicked instantly. Annie's first mission had been rough on her; the mission was accomplished but it had been rough. Upon returning to the DPD, Annie intended to finish out her report and then return home for a bubble bath and then sink into her bed, which she had missed greatly when she was cornered by Auggie.

The offer of drinks was too good to pass up after the rough last few days she had been through. That night started setting the tone for their friendship as they battered back and forth like old friends before separating for the evening.

Their friendship grew slowly but surely through the years. His voice in her ear had become a constant throughout the years which was something she was forever grateful for. Slowly they built a friendships through missions over the communication links and evenings at the Tavern. After a particularly brutal mission Annie finds herself in the gym with Auggie nearly every morning for the next several months as he mats her over and over again and her skill level increases the more time they spend in the gym as they fall into an easy camaraderie together the more they trained and the more she heard his voice in her ear.

The day Auggie gave her the '_get out of jail free card' _Annie felt something shift within their relationship, but not in an obvious, overt way, but something simple and underneath the table, covert way, that she wouldn't change for the world.

Stu and Barber noticed that Auggie wasn't as forceful as he usually was, although he started tensing up whenever they started talking about Agent Walker. The banter between Auggie and Annie increased ten-fold as the years passed them by to the point that the office had started a betting pool, which just made Auggie shake his head, deciding it wasn't worth letting them know that he had almost the entire office wired depending on his mood.

The first night Annie stumbled into his apartment with him, both slightly tipsy and unable to drive, something within Auggie shifted as the sounds of Mingus came through the apartment as they sat, curled into opposite ends of the sofa as they enjoyed the silence with each other.

Time stops for no one, no matter how Auggie wished they could have stayed like that forever as Annie started talking on more missions at work, throwing herself into her job, something she loved greatly. They soon fell into a routine and a pattern that had many at the DPD jealous, as every time Annie returned home he specifically waited for her to return to US soil before he finished up any reports and started shutting down his machines around the time Annie Walker would coincidentally would finish up her reports for the evening or have been told to go home. He always seemed to time it just right to where they left at the same time, either taking Annie's car to Allen's or just staying in at Auggie's for the evening enjoying the silence they could only share with each other.

* * *

Parker was the next woman Auggie had allowed into his life all those years after Helen. He met Parker at a '_celebration of life' _party for her brother, Billy who would have been turning thirty. Auggie had served with him while in the Tikrit area. Auggie and Parker seemed to click from the get go, even though Parker at one point attempted to call off their relationship.

Parker returned to Africa to continue on with her work when Auggie decided Parker was who he wanted to start his life over again with.

He had foolishly gone to Africa to propose to Parker when he wound up in a hostage situation involving Parker and the people she worked with; during which Auggie admitted he worked for the CIA. After they were extracted Auggie once again asked Parker to marry him and this time she said yes and he couldn't have been more happy.

Only a few days later Parker attempted to leave, saying they had only bonded over Billy's death. Auggie pleaded with her, begged her, to stay at least one more night. Parker eventually broke down and agreed but the next morning Auggie woke to the sounds of cab outside his apartment building before he was handed the ring back, and Parker walked out of his life for good.

* * *

Parker's leaving destroyed something in Auggie that evening; the trashed state of his apartment was the first clue that Annie had after he had been bailed out of jail and didn't show up to work the next day.

Managing to break into Auggie's apartment temporarily made her very proud. That was until her eyes took in the sight before her. The few pictures that had previously hung on the wall had been torn off, the majority of his dishes where shattered and stepping further into the apartment towards his bed where he currently resided, all of his clothing had been pulled down from the closet.

What Auggie liked about Annie was that she never asked him why, never pressed him to talk about it. She just gave him an aspirin and sent him back to bed before she started a long day of cleaning up the mess her best friend had found himself in. Pulling out his dry clean only clothes from those that could go into the washer she started a load of clothes before she tackled the mess that was his closet. Once the closet was back in a normal state, and in the usual order he kept things in, she stole his IPod before placing the buds in her ears and began the process of cleaning up the broken glass that was all over his kitchen floor, all the while doing a mental inventory of what would need to be replaced.

A glance in the fridge told her that he hadn't been shopping in a while but he had been out of the country for a month and a half. Deciding he needed groceries she made a list, matching it up with a few meals in her head before she left the apartment, a bag full of clothes to drop off at the dry cleaners on the way.

When dinner was halfway done she heard the soft tread of his feet enter the kitchen before the fridge opened and he grabbed a bottled water, downing it within a few seconds.

"What are we eating?" he asked, knowing that although she wasn't as good as he in the kitchen, she still was a halfway decent cook.

"Kept it simple tonight, mushroom ravioli with a mushroom sauce." She said, finally turning around to face him with she was able to cut the heat off under the sauce.

"Annie…" whatever he was going to say was cut off by a shirt hitting him in the shoulder as he laughed. Taking the hint he pulled it on before he began setting the table, knowing that it was her way of saying he didn't have to talk about it.

Their nights and days started running together as they got back into the routine of reforming their friendship to what it was before Auggie left suddenly to follow a woman halfway around the globe.

* * *

"_It must be nice to have an Auggie in your life."_

"_An Auggie?"  
_

"_It's Auggie you who talk to right?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_I may not be a spy like you but your voice changes when you talk to him."_

* * *

Then the inevitable happened. Annie was shot almost fatally. The things he said to her sitting by her bedside where numerous but he remembered one of them very vividly.

_I've never needed anyone before, but I need you._

She had truly scared him then and it made him realize just how important Annie Walker had become to him in the sort few years he had known her. Annie Catherine Walker had somehow found a way to worm her way into his heart without even trying. He'd be damned if he let her be the one that got away, not after everything they had been through.

Not after everything their friendship had come to mean to him.

* * *

That night after Allen's had been the best thing to ever happen to him, either of them for that matter.

The feel of her lips on his was something he had been dreaming about for what seemed like forever. This time, however, it was ten times better that what his subconscious had made up in the absence of her lips on his, her body in his arms.

That first night was a memory he would treasure forever as he learned every curve and contour of her small frame in a much more intimate manner than he ever could of in the confines of the gym at Langley.

It seemed so right, it seemed perfect. It was amazing.

Knowing that she was his and he was hers.

It was blissful, things changed as they fell into a new routine and old routines where routed deeper in their memories.

Their bliss wasn't to last very long.

* * *

Listening as Annie told him she loved him one last time was one on the hardest things Auggie ever had to do.

Telling her family that Annie was dead, and grieving the loss of his girlfriend and best friend was harder. Especially since it was a lie.

His grief was not a lie; he mourned for the loss of the woman he had just gotten to truly know and just realized how much she meant to him.

She was his light and his love.

Months went by, very little to no contact, as she wormed her way deeper into the underground attempting to find Henry Wilcox.

Time has a way of making the heart grow fonder; or making it yearn in her absence as the case may be.

Then it happened.

_Helen Hanson_

That was a name Auggie hadn't heard in a long time; her walking into his apartment was something he wasn't expecting by a long shot. Finding out she was alive cut him deeper than he ever showed her.

When she sent the text message asking him to meet her, the feeling in his gut told him it was a very, _very _bad idea. The pounding of his heart told him it was a good idea; he needed closure from what happened all those years ago.

He knew the glass of wine was a very bad idea. Kissing her was even worse idea than the wine. She had been his wife; the love of his life and that was the last coherent thought he had as they moved from the couch to her bed.

* * *

Sitting on the side of the bed with his head in his hands, Auggie knew he had made a horrible mistake. It was obvious to Helen that Auggie wasn't hers anymore and she let him go without a fight as he made his way back to his apartment, not caring that he was taking an unfamiliar route to him.

He needed time to think and that is exactly what he did once he got home. He missed being the voice in her ear. He missed their nights at Allen's. He missed their nights at his apartment drinking a beer or a glass of wine after a tough case, usually for both of them.

He missed their Saturday routine of going to get a cup of coffee and forgetting the outside world existed on their rare Saturdays off. He missed the smell of her Jo Malone Grapefruit perfume. He missed the feel of her lips against his. He missed the smell of her on his clothing and the smell of her in his bed; something that had become a staple before Henry Wilcox had entered their life in such a violent maelstrom.

He cheated the next time he went to the mall. He bought a bottle of Jo Malone Grapefruit perfume, spraying his pillow with it so he would be able to sleep without drinking himself into oblivion.

Auggie threw himself into work, staying up at days for a time working double time keeping his other operatives safe and attempting to keep tabs on Wilcox and Annie at the same time.

* * *

Stu and Barber followed his orders at work to a '_T' _not complaining when they worked forty eight hours on end, running on straight caffeine until it stopped working. Auggie tried to send them home several times. _Ordered _them to go home several times until finally Barber snapped at Auggie.

"You just don't get it do you?" He said, shaking his head as he looked at the man he knew as his boss and had come to respect, "We don't rest until this is finished. We will figure this out. You're pulling more hours than all of us combined Anderson. We know what needs to be done and we're going to help you. Hit the gym for an hour if you can, work off what you can." Barber said, glad to see that his boss was taking his advice as he pulled away from his computer station and made his way to the Agency's gym, glad to hear that it was remotely empty.

He lost time in the gym as his fists hit the bag repeatedly in a rapid motion.

_LEFT. RIGHT. LEFT. RIGHT. GAB. UPPERCUT. LEFT. RIGHT. LEFT. RIGHT. GAB. UPPERCUT._

He left the Agency shortly afterwards. Not paying attention as he mechanically made his way back to his apartment. Locking the door behind him, he changed out of his work outfit before he poured a glass of Chardonnay Red. It had always be one of Annie's favorites. He tended to try and keep a few bottles in his apartment, even now that she was gone he found himself drinking it more now that he was on his own than he was when she had been in his arms.

In the privacy of his own apartment he wrestled internally with what he had allowed to happen with Helen. There was nothing left there. At one time he had loved her with all his life and would have laid his life down for her; now the only person that got the courtesy now was one Annie Walker.

The question would be, would Annie forgive him if she were ever able to come back to him. Would Auggie ever be able to forgive himself?

* * *

Auggie Anderson got his answer a lot sooner than he had ever thought would be possible.

A knock on his door scattered him from his thoughts as he hit the button on his watch, surprised when he found that it read out in its mechanical voice. _One Thirty AM._ Who on earth would be at his door at such an ungodly hour?

"Whose there?" he asked, calling through the steel door that guarded the entrance to his apartment. He waited but received no answer; finally having waited long enough he pulled the door open roughly, blind to the woman that was standing right in front of him.

Jessica Matthews held her breath as Auggie stood in front of her, staring at him with his unseeing eyes. She turned away to walk out of his life for good when something inside her made her stop; this could be her last chance to see him.

Walking closer all she said was "It's me" before she was quickly granted access to the apartment and the door was bolted shut behind her just as quickly.

It felt like they talked that night more than they ever had in the few years they had known each other.

"Auggie, you'll never loose me if you tell me the truth." Annie whispered, surprised when he pulled her to him, resting his forehead against hers; it felt right, it felt like the old Annie was still buried inside of her and only Auggie could bring her out.

"Then let's keep talking because I never want to lose you." The tone in his voice broke Annie; he had taken her "death" a lot harder than she had ever anticipated and that was with him knowing she was alive and doing well.

The time for talking had come to an end as he pulled her to him, pressing his lips to hers with fierceness and a passion she had missed in the past few months as he pressed her down into his couch not wanting to let her go for anything in the world as she clung to him tightly before her hands immediately went to pull the thin cotton t-shirt he wore over his head when steady hands reached down to stop her.

"This is about you tonight." He said, pressing a kiss into her hair before pinning her hands above her head, knowing that if she wanted to she could get out of it. He kissed her lips before moving down her jaw and then her throat, loving the moan she let out when he found a pressure point that had always excited her.

He had every intention of worshiping the goddess that was Annie Walker and never letting her out of his sight, metaphorically speaking, again.

One round of soft, passionate love making and another that was closer to a knock-out; drag down brawl later they finally made it to his bed, allowing him to pull her to him. He never wanted to let her go again as he finally thought back to the conversation they had earlier in the evening. He had told her everything. They had run through Parker, and his recent indiscretion with Helen and while he could tell that she had been slightly upset about it at the time, she understood it was his way of coping without her and it was his way of saying goodbye to a marriage that he had thought ended in his wife's death before he finally drifted off into the kind of sleep he had been missing for the last few months. No longer feeling as if his world was falling apart.


End file.
